Eighteen innings, and not a single base hit.
That's the streak
St. Michael's (Santa Fe, N.M.) senior pitcher
Colin Friedman is on now after he tossed a perfect game against Pojoaque (N.M.) Tuesday. Two no-nos (one six innings, one five innings) and the perfecto have overshadowed the stats from his last three starts: 28 strikeouts and one walk against 56 batters, according to a
story in the Santa Fe New Mexican.
Friedman finished his work Tuesday in a tidy 77 pitches (61 for strikes).
"I'm at a loss for words," St. Michael's coach David Vigil told the newspaper. "I
don't know what to say. You're going to have to be someone pretty
special to do that. I've never seen that happen before. That's just
something that -- that's something that rarely happens. You'll never see
it happen. At any level."
Well, not quite true. According to the
National Federation of High School Associations Record Book, the record for consecutive no-hitters is six. If Friedman tosses one more, he can get his name in the book with four straight. A perfect game in his next start would tie the national record.
And just to make the day more interesting, Pojoaque turned a triple play in the game.
A pitcher has thrown at least four no-hitters in each of the past three
seasons. Patrick Schuster of Mitchell (Tampa) threw four in a row in
2009 while John Kukuruda of East Nicolaus (Nicolaus, Calif.) threw four
in 2010 and Steven Perry of Maxwell (Calif.) threw four in 2011.